Speculation is building that the controversial NordStream undersea gas pipelines, blown up in still-unsolved September 2022 attacks, could emerge as part of a US-Russian energy deal after a ceasefire in Ukraine.
The operator of the NordStream pipelines is fighting legal action on two fronts – in Germany and Switzerland – to postpone bankruptcy proceedings, so far successfully on both counts.
Sunday marked a final deadline for the Swiss-based NordStream 2 AG firm, operator of the newer of the two sets of pipelines, to “satisfy in full” its creditor liabilities.
“If this deadline is not met,” warned the Swiss cantonal court in Zug in a previous ruling, “the applicant will be declared bankrupt without setting a grace period.”
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The deadline passed at the weekend and NordStream 2 AG was not declared bankrupt. Instead the court announced it would extend the deadline to May 9th – the company’s second bankruptcy reprieve.
Last January marked the 32-month cut-off point in Swiss law for a company to satisfy creditors in insolvency proceedings or be declared bankrupt – triggering a sell-off of all company assets.
Then, as now, the court took the unusual step of extending the deadline in favour of the firm, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom energy giant.
The unusual decisions have ramped up speculation of a NordStream comeback, including the repair of three of the four 1,200km-long pipelines damaged in the 2022 explosions and now filled with sea water. Estimates of the repair cost of the pipelines range from €500 million-€800 million.
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Adding to the speculation is a second court case in Germany’s northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommen, where the undersea pipeline comes ashore.
Just before Christmas a local Sparkasse savings bank closed, with immediate effect, NordStream 2’s company accounts there, fearing they might be used for transactions that could trigger US sanctions against the financial institution.
Selling Russian gas under a US label would symbolically strengthen the spiritual connection between Trump and his Maga supporters and the Kremlin
— Roderich Kiesewetter
When the local provincial court rejected NordStream 2’s application for an injunction to halt – and reverse – the account closure, company lawyers lodged an appeal at a superior court that is not likely to be heard before mid-April.
NordStream lawyer Thorsten Zebich argued that the bank accounts were essential to pay at least 25 local firms still owed money from work on building NordStream. “We have to pay to avoid bankruptcy,” he said, insisting no payments were planned to any parties that could trigger sanctions.
It remains unclear whether postponing – or forcing – bankruptcy proceedings and a fire sale of assets is more likely to happen, and who would benefit most from which outcome.
Recent weeks have seen growing speculation that a US-led consortium is interested in either buying or leasing the Nord Stream 2 pipelines from their Russian owners.
Leading Berlin politicians have expressed alarm at the idea of a US-Russian energy partnership on German territory.
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“Selling Russian gas under a US label would symbolically strengthen the spiritual connection between Trump and his Maga supporters and the Kremlin,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, foreign policy spokesman for the centre-right Christian Democratic Union. “NordStream can never be part of peace and will not enable peace negotiations, quite the opposite.”
Last month the Bild tabloid asked Richard Grennell, a former US ambassador to Germany and Trump administration special envoy, to confirm information from multiple sources that he was involved in US-Russian talks involving NordStream.
“Go ahead and publish that I am involved in this wild story,” he replied, calling the reporter a “crackpot” and later describing the story as “fake news”.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, local liberal Free Democratic Party politician René Domke described the idea of a US-Russian NordStream pipeline partnership as “a tale from Absurdistan”.
A spokesman for the federal economics ministry noted that the NordStream 2 pipeline was never certified for use – chancellor Olaf Scholz cancelled the procedure after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – “and thus remains non-licensed”.
